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Dessert

Rich Currant Cake

A buttery cake with currants, almonds, citrus, and spices baked for about three hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,115 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Rich Currant Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Mix the spice with the flour.

  2. Melt the butter and cream together, then let it cool and stir into the flour.

  3. Add the yeast to the beaten egg whites, then strain into the flour mixture.

  4. Mix in the remaining ingredients and beat well.

Bake

  1. Butter a cake pan and line it with buttered paper.

  2. Pour the batter into the pan and place it in the oven immediately.

  3. Once the cake rises and is slightly colored, cover the top with paper.

  4. Bake for about 3 hours.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Almond + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and tenderness, and helps the crumb feel soft.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the batter into a firm, tender crumb.
Egg whites
Beaten separately, they add lift and an airy texture to the cake.
Fresh yeast
Produces gas that makes the batter rise before and during baking.
Currants
Add fruit, sweetness and chewy bursts throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Covering the top once the cake rises and colors. Covering the top with paper once it is lightly colored slows browning so the surface does not darken or burn while the center finishes cooking over the long bake.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, sugar, lemon, almond, rose, nutmeg):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar, lemon, almond, rose, nutmeg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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